The Inquiry

Gallifrey #1.3

Released: April 2004

Listened: 3/28/21

After the events of “Weapon of Choice,” there were threats of an inquiry into Romana’s actions, and in this story, we get it. It’s a thin excuse to bring back Linda Bellingham as Inquisitor Darkel from the Trial for a guest appearance, but that’s OK. Except that events proceed too quickly for a stately Gallifreyan inquiry to keep up with. The plot fairly rockets along in this one, a sharp contrast with previous stories, and skipping over some action scenes that I would have expected to see played out. Narvin and his assistant Torvald are being sneaky and skulky, Leela is still looking for info on Andred and not trusting anybody, Braxiatel is being enigmatic and playing both sides, and Romana is frequently exasperated. Oh, and the impossible weapon from part 1 not only exists, but was built by the Time Lords and then destroyed, as we see in some tantalizing flashbacks...except the flashbacks aren’t reliable, because of some impressive timey-wimey that I didn’t think was possible on Gallifrey, but there it is. And we get the first reference to the Braxiatel Collection, which some people think is harmless, but others think is a crime. As a part 3 story, it succeeds more than most of them do, giving a solid motivation to continue to part 4.